One of the best things in sports is when a homegrown or original team member wins a championship with said team.
That happened on Tuesday night, June 13th, when the Vegas Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup for the first time in their six-year history by defeating the Florida Panthers by a score of 9-3 in Game 5. Brayden McNabb, Reilly Smith, William Carrier, Shea Theodore, William Karlsson, and Jonathan Marchessault were original Golden Knights and are now Cup champions.
While all of the above-mentioned players played a key role in helping the team win hockey’s Holy Grail this season, it was Marchessault, 32, who made the biggest impact when it mattered most. Due to his strong efforts in this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs, he won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the league’s most valuable player during the postseason.
Marchessault led the Golden Knights in scoring with 25 points on 13 goals and 11 assists. He also led the team with 80 shots on goal and was tied for the team lead with three game-winning goals.
He was everywhere in this year’s postseason. He went to the dangerous areas to score goals, he won puck battles along the boards, he made key plays at the right time, and he played a great 200-foot game every single night.
These are the things that Marchessault has done throughout his career as a Golden Knight. In six seasons with the Golden Knights, he leads the franchise in goals (150), assists (198), points (348), power-play goals (34), game-winning goals (27) and is tied for first in games played (432) with William Karlsson.
Marchessault is someone who has been through it all with this franchise. He has been to the Stanley Cup Final twice, was there during the horrific tragedy that struck the Vegas community back in October of 2017, has been involved in playoff ousters, has been with the team when they missed the postseason, and now, he has been with the team when they reached the ultimate goal.
This is a player who is a Golden Knight through and through. Now, he gets to celebrate a Cup with a team that embraced him and made him one of their own.
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